


In Transitu

by ryuuen_kurai



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Yurio, Angst, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, The Viktuuri Break Up Fic I Didn't Know I Wanted to Write, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9129205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuuen_kurai/pseuds/ryuuen_kurai
Summary: In which Viktor and Yuuri break up and Yurio's world falls apart...





	

Yurio is nineteen when Viktor and Yuuri break up.

It’s Yuuko who tells him the news, calls him on Skype at 3:53 in the morning, totally ignoring the fact that he lived a couple of time zones away.  It was all over social media, she frets, an online gossip blog was already touting it as the biggest celebrity break-up of the year, and what in the world was Yurio even doing at a time like this?

“Sleeping,” he says around a mouthful of hair, curses his decision to grow his hair long - it was now reaching the middle of his back – while still managing to glare menacingly at one of only two people in whom he had ever confided the Biggest Secret(TM) of his entire teenage life.  “Sleeping like any sane person this part of the globe and what the hell is wrong with you, woman?”

He feels a headache coming on and he is reminded that yes, he had just spent the better part of last night and early morning catching up with Otabek over a couple of drinks and no, it was too much to expect of him to have any form of coherent thought right now.

Yuuko has the gall to snort at him.  “Drinking yourself stupid is more like it, with that ‘ _friend’_ of yours.”

Yurio barely restrains the urge to roll his eyes at the way she says the word ‘friend.’  “We’re done, Yuuko.  It’s been done for a year and a half.  Hell, we didn’t even make it past a season before realizing that it wasn’t what either of us wanted and that we're better off as friends.”

“Ri-ght,” she says, still sounding unconvinced and Yurio has this suspicion that she’d never get over him deciding to date Otabek a couple of years back, that she’ll always treat it as some sort of betrayal of her childhood friend – which it would have been had there been anything to _betray_.  “Anyway,” she says, “while you were out there having fun, people have officially declared it to be the end of the world.  Welcome to the apocalypse, Yuri Plisetsky.”

And what she says after is something he thinks he'd never hear, never in his wildest dreams.  It takes a moment to register.

“Wait, hold on!  What?”

Yuuko lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“Viktor and Yuuri – they’re through.  Done.  Over. Viktor just up and left this morning, that cowardly bastard! Didn’t even have the decency to...”

His brain stops functioning at that point.

_Viktor and Yuuri broke up._

_Viktor and Yuuri._

_Viktor._

_And Yuuri._

_Yuuri._

The words repeat themselves in Yurio’s mind, over and over, until it finally hits him.  His world tilts and he barely makes it to the toilet before he is throwing up all the tequila shots he’d downed earlier and a good portion of yesterday’s dinner, Yuuko’s worried shouts drowned out by feelings he’d thought he’d buried together with a sacrifice he’d made at a time when he was too young to understand what it meant.

* * *

He buys a one-way ticket to Hasetsu the following morning.  Yakov was going to have a fit, with two of his students disappearing on him this close to the opening of the season, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at that moment.  After all, he could always blame it on the impulsiveness of youth and all that shit you could get away with for being a teenager.

Viktor and Yuuri had broken up and his entire world shattered to pieces.

Viktor and Yuuri had broken up and, in the blink of an eye, the only thing keeping him from going after what he really wanted was gone, vanished, and he is surprised at his own selfishness.

Viktor and Yuuri had broken up and he was just so damn sure that that stupid katsudon was going to do something stupid once again.

He’d been running on anger and confusion and caffeine and _oh-God-what-if-I’m-too-late_ for the better part of the last twelve hours when he finds himself before the sliding doors of the  _Yuutopia_.  He throws them open with barely restrained rage, barely registering Yuuri’s mother who was at the front desk, stomps his way to what he remembers to be the door to Yuuri’s room, breaks it down and screams, “I don’t care whatever that stupid Viktor did or why you two broke up but don’t you fucking even dare think about retiring now or else I’m going to fucking end you!”

The older man blinks up at him from where he’d been working on his laptop.  “It’s nice to see you too, Yurio,” he says, and it’s as if they’d just seen each other yesterday.  Katsuki Yuuri is just as Yurio remembers him from way back, right down to the stupid red-framed glasses and the stupid haircut and the stupid coffee-brown eyes that were now looking at him with worry, as though _he_ were the one having a mental breakdown over a broken engagement.

Yurio doesn’t know what to make of it.

“You... Viktor... Yuuko said... Damn it! What the hell are you even doing, listen to me you stupid pig?!”

Yuuri sighs, attention back on his laptop screen.

“Damage control,” he says – still calm, still collected if a little bit distracted, definitely a far cry from what Yurio had expected he’d find the moment he broke down that familiar door.  Heck, the older man seemed to be doing a lot better than Yurio himself.

“But how... why... you were supposed to get married in December... what... and how the hell are you not the least bit upset?”

Yuuri’s expression tightens for a moment and Yurio is almost scared that he’d said the wrong thing, is surprised when all the other skater does is sigh, take off his glasses, massage the bridge of his nose.  “A lot of things have happened,” he acknowledges.  “And it’s a long story but I doubt either of us is in the right disposition to talk about it.”

He stands, walks toward Yurio, and the Russian is annoyed at those three centimeters that Yuuri still had on him.  “Come, let me draw you a bath.  It must have been a long day for you.”

He feels a gentle touch to his shoulder and he looks up to earnest brown eyes and an almost sad smile.  “I’m glad you’re here, Yurio.”

Yurio forgets how to breathe. 

* * *

The last time he’s been here at this very spot, he’d been an angry, stubborn brat fighting to bring the person who had promised to be his coach back home.  The tub looks smaller than he remembers and the setting feels more intimate than he is comfortable with that he practically throws the wooden bucket at Yuuri when the older man suggests that he scrub his back for him, wants to make a scathing remark about just how much of that pervert Viktor had rubbed off on him and how he very much preferred Yuuri when the latter was a stuttering virgin, but is fortunately prevented from doing so by the sound of a hastily shut door and the sound of barely concealed laughter at the other side of it.

“Kidding,” Yuuri says after the laughter subsides.  “Take your time, Yurio.  I’ll go tell Mom you’d be joining us for dinner.”

Yurio listens to Yuuri’s footsteps as he walks down the corridor and is once again taken aback by how natural it feels to be here, in this tiny bathroom in an obscure onsen a thousand miles from home.  He undresses slowly, walks to the bath that Yuuri had drawn for him, steps in and lets out a contented sigh.

He’d come here on reflex, didn’t really give much thought as to why or how or what he was even going to do when he got here.  He’d expected the worst – expected to find the same sobbing mess of a man he’d found in the bathroom stall the year before his senior debut – and who was he kidding, he wasn’t exactly the most comforting person in the world.  If he’d have thought about it earlier, he wouldn’t have come, wouldn’t have been confident enough that he’d be what the other man needed at a time like this.

_I’m glad you’re here, Yurio_ , Yuuri’s gentle voice echoes in his ears.

He closes his eyes, feeling an unfamiliar warmth settle in his chest.  It feels strangely like hope.

**Author's Note:**

> So it's been a while and I'm definitely out of practice but YOI and its characters have sparked something in me that reminded me just how much I enjoy writing for something that I care about. Hope everyone likes this self-indulgent piece. =)


End file.
